BITTER CHRISTMAS (AMARGA NAVIDAD) Special Screenings

Eye-popping sweaters and interiors, the dramatic effect of a Chavela Vargas song, the sizzling screen presence of Rossy de Palma. Spanish auteur Pedro Almodóvar plays the hits before smashing his own playbook in this brilliant piece of autofiction, following the parallel stories of two self-obsessed filmmakers who contemplate the limits of inspiration. Bárbara Lennie is Elsa, a cult filmmaker whose string of flops caused her to transition into a powerful advertising executive. Suffering from splitting migraines, she relies on the care of her dedicated boyfriend, Bonifacio (Patrick Criado), a strapping firefighter who moonlights as an exotic dancer. The spark of a story, stolen from a friend, is perhaps the cure for her long creative drought. Argentine actor Leonardo Sbaraglia (PAIN AND GLORY) is Raúl, an Almodóvar stand-in with the iconic tousled tuft of gray hair, who is nursing his own artistic demons. He struggles to write his new screenplay until he latches onto the real-life drama of his faithful assistant, Mónica (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, PARALLEL MOTHERS, AFI FEST 2021) and his devoted younger partner, Santi (Quim Gutiérrez). A Russian nesting doll of stories within stories, Almodóvar’s excavation of creative impulses continues his late career trend of extremely personal and introspective films that dare to question his own filmmaking process. –Josh Gardner